


Slipping through your fingers

by mia_ametista



Category: Green Gables Fables
Genre: Gen, spoilers for Anne of the Island, yeah yeah this is exactly what you'll expect it to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ametista/pseuds/mia_ametista
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe this was how you knew you loved someone - when the mere thought of a world without them was simply unbearable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slipping through your fingers

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is my way of coping with recent in-universe events. Yes, this is my take on that one infamous book incident yet to come this season. We all know which one. (Spoilers, obviously, for those who don't because they haven't read the books.)  
> I hope I haven't messed up Anne's character too horribly.

 

_a penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar_  
_they're worth so much more after I'm a goner_  
 _and maybe then you'll hear the words I've been singing_  
 _funny when you're dead, how people start listening_  
 _\- The Band Perry_

People in Anne’s life had a habit of leaving.

Or maybe she had a habit of losing people. Maybe she kept pushing and pushing them underwater until they either drowned or the stream took them away, leaving her alone at the riverside, only noticing when it was too late already. Maybe they kept slipping through her fingers because she still hadn’t learned to hold on to them, still couldn’t see all the little signs telling her that she was losing her grip.

By the time Anne had come to Avonlea she’d already been so used to loss that she’d thought she’d seen it all. With her sweet sixteen years she had already seen and lived more than some people three times her age, and she’d thought herself oh so clever – not out loud, but always a subconscious certainty.  
Matthew hadn’t been the first. Yet he had been the first that _mattered_. Months after the funeral Anne had still been lying awake at night, twisting and turning everything she’d ever said to Matthew in her head. Why hadn’t she been more grateful? Why had she kept grouching at him that one time although he’d clearly been hurt by it? Why hadn’t she told him more often how much he meant to her and how thankful she was for everything?

Ruby’s funeral, still as present to her as if it had been yesterday, had been quiet and painful and Anne had felt as if the sun had suddenly lost a good deal of its warmth. Deep down she had known for a while that the day would come, and in hindsight she wondered why she had still pretended that everything was alright.  
Sure, she had Skyped with Ruby regularly, she’d written her e-mails and stuff, but mostly she’d just convinced herself that she had other things to do. Important things. There was uni stuff she had to do, and she’d go visit Ruby after reading week. The thing with Roy was going really well, and hell, she was allowed to enjoy herself, she’d write a short text to Ruby after her date.  
And of course she had forgotten to text Ruby, and now she couldn’t text her ever again. Never tell her how bright she had shone or how much she would be remembered.  
Yes, Ruby was still present in her thoughts most of the time, and the loss was still fresh and painful.

But as she was sitting on the bed in her old room at Green Gables, still trying to grasp Marilla’s words from before, all she could think was: not Gilbert.  
Oh please, dear God, not Gilbert as well.

How used she had been to losing people, and how scared of it at the same time – and now, as she was thinking of Gilbert a paralyzing fear crept up inside her, freezing and numbing her insides while hurting like hell.  
She couldn’t lose him. She _couldn’t_.  
And the worst thing was that it had taken her too long to realize.

There wasn’t enough time, people always said, but that was a lie, Anne thought. She’d had plenty of time, and she had wasted most of it with petty feuds, blind ignorance, and too much silly pride to admit that she might have been wrong. How had she spent weeks swooning over shallow, mediocre poetry when she would’ve only had to _listen_ to the people she _knew_ had something to say?  
Because that was the second lie the books and stories told. How did you know you loved someone? From a pleasant voice saying what you wanted to hear? From telling yourself long enough about butterflies in your stomach, until you convinced yourself of their existence? Sixteen-year-old Anne would have known it to be true, but she was but a distant memory in nineteen-year-old Anne’s harsh reality.  
She knew she loved someone when she still stopped and thought about what they would’ve advised her, almost a year after their death.  
She knew she loved someone when every laugh, every ray of sunshine reminded her of their bright presence, and when everything felt a little bit colder, a little less whole since they were gone.

She knew she loved someone when the mere thought of a world without them was simply unbearable.

Anne curled up on her bed, burying her face in the pillow. Everything around her reminded her of Gilbert – of the first time they’d been exchanging more than a few words – but she had a feeling that pretty much everything would remind her of Gilbert at the moment.  
How gladly she would’ve traded all the poetry and fairytale romance in the world now, not even to see him, only for some good news from the hospital.

Anne hesitated before she did something she hadn’t done since she had moved out from Green Gables.  
She prayed.


End file.
